Tuesday, June 2, 2009

How I captured the perfect storm

A Jack Russell puppy was the first to sense the danger. With ears pinned back, it cowered in the corner, whimpering, trembling. Hail the size of golf balls started smashing against the windows, and then came rain, torrential, relentless, deafening. Women and children were crying and men with tattoos on their tree-trunk biceps looked anxiously about them. Thunder shook the building and rattled our souls. A lightening strike momentarily turned everything a shocking blue before plunging us into darkness.

It was May, 2008 and I was in a petrol station in Nebraska after seven weeks travelling the American Midwest pursuing tornadoes during the most active tornado season for 50 years. Already 90 people had died, but the season was far from over. As an anthropologist and geographer, I am fascinated by the complex relationship between man and nature, and wanted to get up close and personal with a twister.

Why, I wanted to know, do people insist on living in climatic danger zones? Why do they choose to coexist with natural hazards that could kill or injure them on a seasonal basis? And, as a filmmaker and adventurer, I also wanted the adrenalin buzz of rubbing shoulders with this ferocity – and capturing it on film.

(This is a terrific article, with video highlights. Click here to read the entire post).

No comments:

Post a Comment

About Me

Welcome to my weather blog. Every day I sift through hundreds of stories, maps, graphics and meteorological web sites, trying to capture some of the most interesting weather nuggets, the stories behind the forecast. I'll link to stories and share some of the web sites I use.
I'm still passionate about the weather, have been ever since Tropical Storm Agnes flooded my home in Lancaster, PA in 1972. I've started 5 weather-related companies. "EarthWatch" created the world's first 3-D weather graphics for TV stations - Steven Spielberg used our software in "Jurassic Park" and "Twister". My last company, "Digital Cyclone", personalized weather for cell phones. "My-Cast" was launched in 2001 and is still going strong on iPhone, Android and Blackberry. I sold DCI to Garmin in 2007 so I could focus on my latest venture: WeatherNation.
__________________________
Twitter name: pdouglasweather